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Consciousness has less control than believed, according to new theory

According to Morsella’s framework, the “free will” that people typically attribute to their conscious mind — the idea that our consciousness, as a “decider,” guides us to a course of action — does not exist. Instead, consciousness only relays information to control “voluntary” action, or goal-oriented movement involving the skeletal muscle system.

3 thoughts on “Consciousness has less control than believed, according to new theory”

The real question here is the definition of consciousness. There are many kinds of consciousness from pure awareness, to unconscious and instinctual behaviors, to self awareness and human self-consciousness. Nature often demands instantaneous response to information and stimulus, often for survival itself. Human reasoning is but another tool in the evolution of primary awareness.

In 2004. I was an undergrad and I did a report on a book I can’t remember the title, for physical anthropology , the argument was that consciousness was the result of an evolutionary adaptation of the brain that he called ‘the interpreter’. The book relayed a bunch of psychological and neurological experiment’s results over the years. A primary one was that signals from sensory input reach the brain .05 seconds after the stimuli. So any conception or apprehension toward analysis always occurs .05 after such analysis has already know occurred. So the interpreter takes the info and activity that is already occurring and ‘interprets’ it into a narrative. I wish I could remember the name of the book.